Your AI stack just got more expensive—and more powerful.

Google I/O 2025 wasn't just software announcements. It revealed where AI will physically live, how users will interact with it, and critically, what Google charges for access to frontier capabilities. For AI founders and CTOs, this signals a fundamental shift: hardware platforms are becoming the new distribution layer, and subscription tiers are gatekeeping the tools that differentiate your product.

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Beyond the Screen: Google's AI Hardware Horizon and Your Next Platform

Google I/O 2025 wasn't just about software; it dropped significant hints about where AI will live and how users will interact with it in the physical world. For AI founders, new hardware platforms mean new ecosystems, new user behaviors, and potentially, entirely new categories of applications.

Android XR and the Smart Glasses Renaissance - AI You Can Wear

Google is making a serious play for Extended Reality (XR) with its Android XR platform. The vision is clear: integrate Gemini's intelligence for context-aware actions, making XR experiences more intuitive and genuinely useful. The most talked-about move here is the strategic partnership with eyewear company Warby Parker. Google is investing up to $150 million to co-develop AI-powered smart glasses, aiming to blend multimodal Gemini AI and AR capabilities into stylish prescription and non-prescription eyewear. These aren't expected until after 2025, but the intent is to compete directly with offerings like Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin even made an appearance, acknowledging past learnings from Google Glass and emphasizing a commitment to a more polished, consumer-ready product this time around. The "killer app" for these smart glasses? A "universal assistant" powered by Gemini and Project Astra, understanding context across devices. Google is also working with Samsung on "Project Moohan," a headset expected in late 2025, and XREAL on a developer-focused device, all running Android XR.

Google Beam - Making Virtual Presence, Real

Remember Project Starline, Google's futuristic 3D video conferencing tech? It's evolved into Google Beam and is becoming available for enterprise customers. Using light field displays, volumetric capture, spatial audio, and real-time AI, Google Beam creates incredibly realistic 3D representations for immersive conversations without special headsets. They've even partnered with HP to create more compact systems. Add to this real-time voice translation in Google Meet that preserves the speaker's voice and tone, and you see a future of much richer remote collaboration.

Why This Hardware Push Matters to Your AI Startup

For AI founders, these hardware developments are more than just cool tech. They signal:

• New Interaction Paradigms: Smart glasses and advanced XR platforms will shift interactions from screens and keyboards to voice, gestures, and contextual awareness. Your AI applications will need to adapt to these more natural, ambient interfaces.

• Untapped Use Cases: AI that can "see what the user sees" and provide real-time, context-aware assistance through glasses opens up a universe of applications in fields like on-the-job training, hands-free navigation, instant language translation, and personalized accessibility tools.

• Platform Opportunities (and Challenges): Early movers who understand how to build compelling experiences for Android XR could find significant advantages. However, as with any new platform, there will be learning curves and the need to design for entirely different user expectations.

The key takeaway? Start thinking about how your AI solutions could transcend the traditional screen and integrate seamlessly into a user's daily life, augmented by these emerging hardware form factors.

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Show Me the AI Money: Google's New Subscription Game Plan

Innovation is fantastic, but as founders, we know it needs a viable business model. Google I/O 2025 brought clarity to how they plan to monetize their most advanced AI capabilities, introducing new subscription tiers that directly impact how your startup might access and leverage their top-tier tools.

Introducing Google AI Pro and AI Ultra

Google has streamlined its AI offerings into two main paid tiers:

• Google AI Pro: Priced around $19.99/month (essentially a rebrand and enhancement of the previous Google One AI Premium), this tier gives you access to Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash models, limited access to the Veo 3 video generator and Flow filmmaking tool, NotebookLM, Gemini in Workspace apps and Chrome, plus 2TB of Google One storage. This tier also introduces "AI Credits" for using tools like Whisk and Flow.

• Google AI Ultra: This is the new top-shelf offering, coming in at a hefty $249.99/month (with an introductory discount for new US users). This "VIP pass for Google AI" is aimed at "trailblazers" and provides:

• The most powerful Gemini 2.5 Pro with Deep Think mode.

• Full access to Veo 3 (with higher generation limits) and Flow.

• Access to Project Mariner agent capabilities.

• The upcoming Agent Mode in the Gemini app.

• Highest limits for NotebookLM (later in 2025).

• A massive 30TB of Google One storage and a YouTube Premium plan. Ultra subscribers can also top-up AI Credits if needed. This tier is rolling out, starting in the U.S.

The Founder's Calculus: Cost vs. Cutting-Edge Capability

This tiered strategy has direct implications for your AI startup:

• Access to Power: The Ultra tier, while expensive, unlocks Google's most potent AI tools. For startups needing that absolute cutting edge for R&D, complex problem-solving, or creating truly differentiated AI products, this could be a strategic investment.

• Budgeting for Innovation: The cost of these premium tiers needs to be factored into your burn rate. However, weigh this against the potential cost (in time and resources) of trying to develop similar foundational capabilities in-house or the opportunity cost of not having access to state-of-the-art models.

• Democratization (with a Price Tag): While "democratization" is a common theme, the highest levels of AI power clearly come at a premium. This might influence which startups can realistically leverage the absolute frontier of Google's AI.

The decision to subscribe, and at what level, will depend on your startup's specific needs, funding stage, and the strategic importance of these advanced AI tools to your core offering. It's a classic build-versus-buy consideration, but now with a subscription layer for accessing the most powerful "buy" options.

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Written by Dr. Hernani Costa | Powered by Core Ventures

Originally published at First AI Movers.

Technology is easy. Mapping it to P&L is hard. At First AI Movers, we don't just write code; we build the 'Executive Nervous System' for EU SMEs.

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